S. Narendrakumar & Co.

The AS/RS for raw materials is 25.4 m high. When receiving a shipment of any of the 60 different types of raw materials used, they are immediately sent to storage.

India’s largest selling spice brand, Everest, has set
up a new manufacturing unit.
Streamlining production and shipping operations
with AS/RSs

S. Narendrakumar & Co., the producer and distributor of India’s largest spice brand, “EVEREST”, began operating a new factory in Umbergaon, Gujarat in November 2016. The company installed two unit load AS/RSs, one for raw materials and the other for finished products, along with a sorting transfer vehicle to automate storage and transportation between its production and storage areas at the new factory.

Founded in 1967, Narendrakumar & Co. manufactures 45 kinds of Everest Masala and other spice products, exporting these to 58 countries; the UK, Singapore, Australia and others, as well as across the home country, India. It has been the proud recipient of the Superbrand status five times in succession.

To meet the company’s target of producing 400 tons of spices daily at this 220,000 sqm factory, it has to stock 1,200 tons of raw materials. Previously, the raw materials and products were stored on the manual racking system at the old factory. Because operations depended on manual handling, it took time to assign raw materials for production. In addition to these issues, from a sanitary control and traceability perspective, it was clear automation was necessary.

The AS/RS for finished products is a double deep system improving storage efficiency.

The two AS/RSs are controlled by the warehouse management system, “WareNavi.”

Automating storage and retrieval with STV

To solve these issues, two unit load AS/RSs, one for raw materials and one for products, were installed at the new factory. The unit load AS/RS for raw materials, containing 2,160 pallet locations, is equipped with three S/R machines, ensuring the timely supply of raw materials to the production line. By storing raw materials and products in an AS/RS rather than on the manual racks, sanitary control has been improved, which is crucial for food products.

After packing in the production line, products are manually loaded onto pallets, where they are transferred onto the STV by forklift. Pallets are then transported to the adjacent storage area where the AS/RS for packaged products is located. The AS/RS has three S/R machines and 4,464 pallet locations. The facility drastically improved its shipping efficiency by adopting these stateof-the-art material handling systems.

“This is going to be the world’s largest Spice manufacturing factory. How we stock the large amount of spices was the main concern, but how we retrieve it was a bigger challenge. That is where the automation came into place. The AS/RS not only helps to keep the perishable goods stored safely, but also ensures timely retrieval for manufacturing operations. It has eliminated contamination risk, reduced labour costs and tracks manufacturing data. Our (Daifuku) support team in India understands our requirement,” said Rajiv Shah, Partner of S. Narendrakumar.

After loading onto pallet by forklift, the STV transports products to the AS/RS.